Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Regime Rushing To Deal With Public Relations Threat

The Regime has been hit hard by recent failings regarding a Muslim terrorist who has lived illegally in the United States since 1999. It has decided to rush out a biometric departure tracking system. Most likely it will be imposing on airlines a fundamental government function, the identification of illegal aliens departing the United States.

Currently departure of aliens is performed by two systems. One is the transfer of passenger manifests for flights departing the United States to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the other is the collection and transfer to CBP of the Departure Record portion of Form I-94 Arrival/Departure Record by airlines of passengers who bother to provide that record. Airlines do not report aliens who do not have departure records. Some create a departure record, but that is just a name, date of birth, and citizenhip. There is also a special departure control system for H-2 non-immigrant workers that is being discontinued. Previously aliens from terrorist sponsoring countries were required to depart from specially designated Ports-of-Entry and submit to questioning and search as part of that process. That also has ended under the current Regime.

Departure control was a primary concern of the 9/11 Commission, as the Glorious 19, as Muslims and Democrats call the 9/11 terrorists, entered and exited the United States several times, even after previous overstays and encounters with various local police agencies.

However, despite legislation that required a biometric departure system, there was never a program that was implemented. Both Bush and the current Regime were depending on outsourcing it to the airlines despite the fact that the current system never quite worked, and never included departures at land POEs, a gaping hole and one much abused by most illegals in the United States, Mexican citizens. In the end the idea was not to find and arrest illegal aliens, both those who entered without inspection (EWI) and overstays or violators of terms of admisson of those inspected and admitted, but to identify them for later refusal for a new visa or refusal at their next attempt at entry.

The Homeland Security Department within a month will have a plan for a biometric system capable of identifying individuals who have overstayed their visas, such as the recent would-be U.S. Capitol bomber.

A decade ago, DHS started establishing the capability to automatically check the fingerprints and photos of visitors entering and exiting the United States. But the exit component of the system -- the one that would flag people who have expired visas -- has not come to fruition.

On Tuesday, a top DHS official said the department will provide Congress with details on an automated arrangement for collecting biometric markers, feeding it to the law enforcement and intelligence communities, and flagging visa overstays. It also will allow immigration enforcement authorities to find illegal visitors who are not public safety threats.

"It's going to be within weeks -- not months, not years," DHS Deputy Counterterrorism Coordinator John Cohen told lawmakers Tuesday. He said, it "would be our intention" to put forth the plan within the next 30 days.

Last month, Amine El Khalifi, an immigrant from Morocco living in Virginia on an expired 1999 visa, attempted to detonate explosives at the U.S. Capitol Building, according to FBI officials. He had earlier run-ins with the law for possession of marijuana and traffic violations. Following Khalifi's arrest, Congress is raising questions as to how someone with invalid documents can go undetected by authorities for years.

We don't know at this moment the proposal, but what is certain is that it will not include actual departure control at airports, much less for land borders. There will be no confirmation that the alien actually departs as well. Why, because the airlines will do the departure control at check-in, as they do now with the Form I-94, not at the gate. All an alien has to do is check in then not take the flight. A small cost to fraudulently secure a departure record. But useless in any event, as there will be no CBP Officer there to take any illegal alien into custody, or, in the case of an EWI, to take a biometric record, or cancel the visa of a violator.

In any event, the records will for the most part be useless. As of now there are only 300 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (ICE HSI) Special Agents assigned to track and arrest overstays. None are assigned to search for and discover illegal aliens who EWI. This is part of the ongoing Obama Regime Administrative Amnesty.

Much is made about local police checking immigration records in the article, but as we know, the Regime is refusing to cooperate with local police who arrest illegals. Calls from police to ICE to arrest illegals are ignored because of the regime's "priorities."ICE routinely declines to take custody of said illegals reported by local police.Think of the infamous New England Patriots stadium janitors who even got a ride from ICE to their illegal employment after an initial stop by local police or the famous illegal alien Jessica Colotl.If ICE would fail to arrest these illegals, there is little likelihood that any aliens identified by this new departure control system would be arrested.Clearly this cobbled together system will be just boob bait for bubbas, or credulous RINOs.